Déjavú

It feels like ages since I've done a post about something in depth... mainly that's because of time constraints. A new member of staff asked me in amazement how I manage to find time to blog with everything else that goes on in my life. I just laughed. I'm not sure how I do it... but Graeme is just wonderful at giving me time to do it.

Journalling (which is essentially what this has become for me in many respects) is an important part of my life. It's the time I take for me, in which I can stop and reflect on life, the universe and everything. It's the time when I think about who I am, where I'm going, things that have happened around or to me, and try to make sense of it all.

Of course, blogging is more than that too - it's like a scrapbook of my life too.

So in addition to the meaty stuff I want to discuss this evening, I feel compelled to tell you that I got caught in THE MOST MASSIVE downpour on Tuesday afternoon. It went from light drizzle to Biblical Flood Proportions in 3 seconds flat, and then proceeded to blizzard rain for a further 15 minutes. Of course, that would just be the time I was walking back to the car with my shopping (not in a trolley, I might add).... which just happened to contain some poster paper I'd bought to paint a backdrop on for my stand next weekend!!

Fortunately, the paper stayed mostly dry (just the edges got wet). Fortunately I was wearing a raincoat. However, everything from my thighs down was soaked. When I got home, I stood on the back porch and stripped because I wasn't going to trail water through the house. I hope the neighbours weren't looking! (Given that you could barely see through the rain, I doubt they'd have seen much anyway.) Graeme thought the whole thing was hilarious. I'm just glad he didn't think to take photos!

But now onto the serious stuff I wanted to reflect on.

I've been doing this intro to business management course through the Louis Group and Stellenbosch University on Wednesday nights. Because Louis Group is a Christian business, the course is run on Christian principles. The first few weeks have therefore been all about personal leadership - the theory being that you can't ever hope to lead a company if you can't lead yourself. They've been plugging people like Bill Hybels and John Maxwell.

Now, the really interesting thing for me is that I was learning all this exact same stuff in the year or two before Janel was born. I've been to Bill Hybels' church in the USA. I've read just about all of the books that he and his staff have written. I've read much of the John Maxwell stuff the course lecturers are promoting. It's been a serious case of déjavú.

While it's been exciting, because I've felt that God is encouraging me to remember where I was and what I was learning (ie, that the material was good and it's important stuff, and I should continue in that direction), last night's course unnerved me and I wound up in tears. (It's not enough that I cry in church all the time... now I'm crying just about everywhere! ;-Q)

Last night, they started teaching Eric Delve stuff. Of course, they didn't know they were teaching Eric Delve stuff, because they've probably never heard of Eric Delve (have you?), but they were. Now, in and of itself, that is not a problem. The problem is that it was Eric Delve's teaching that made me step out of my comfort zone and start down a particular path that wound up breaking my heart. The bigger problem, is that they were asking all the same BIG questions Eric Delve asked on that fateful night back in 2004. And the even bigger problem is that my answer to these big questions was just the same... word for word.

But last time round, I got very badly hurt and I feel like I'm only just really recovering, because in a matter of weeks of having my heart broken, my heart's dream torn up and stomped upon, we found out that we were pregnant with Janel. Initially, it felt like a slap in the face, second prize. (Of course, I don't feel that now - she is definitely first prize!) But in between coping with the problems with the pregnancy, followed by her prem birth, followed by falling pregnant with Zoe, then all the problems with her pregnancy, and then losing her and moving home.... I was trying to make sense of that first heartbreak. It's been a hell of a 3 years! And I only just feel like I'm finding my feet again, spiritually speaking.


And now, it seems, God has decided it's time to put that same question before me once again. I don't know what he intends, because my answer hasn't changed, and I know that the reasons my heart got broken haven't changed, so I can only foresee one outcome from this path - my heart getting broken again.

I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can walk down this road again. I don't think I can put myself out there again, the way I did, knowing that (as things look now) the outcome will be the same. The real definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again in the same way, but expecting different results. Since I know that the methods and means are the same, I don't see how the outcome can be different. And I just can't go there again.

So now I don't know what to do. I know that I have to trust God. I know that it's no coincidence that over the past three weeks God has made me re-walk all the teaching I'd received about leadership before Nellie was born. I know it's no coincidence that, at the end of that trip down memory lane, He has brought me back to the same final questions. I just don't know what He intends by it. He knows that my answer hasn't changed. He knows that I am frail and mortal. He knows that I don't think I could handle another rejection like that. So what is He up to?????

Actually, thinking about it - there are 3 things that are different between now and then.

1) I am a mother now. That's HUGE.
2) I live in SA now.
3) I LOVE my job and I WANT to be where I am for at least 5 years. (I hated my job back then.)

But none of that resolves the issue. I'm still the same me, with all the same character flaws and weaknesses. And those flaws and weaknesses are the reason I was rejected last time around.

My homework this week is to write my personal mission statement. I really don't want to do this. Not because I don't want to, but because I know (or at least I have a very strong suspicion) where this is going to lead, and I really, really, REALLY don't want to go there. I can only see more heartache that way. Right now, I'd rather live with an excellent second choice that makes me happy and gives me the challenge and sense of accomplishment and purpose I desire, than a heart-wrenching-heart-breaking first choice.

And you want to know the worst part about it? When I was rejected, this is exactly what the panel said about me. They were rejecting me because they felt I couldn't deal with rejection and in the position of responsibility that I would have been placed in would have put me in line for LOADS of rejection. I know they made the right choice - I see that now. But it doesn't change the fact that my heart's deepest desire is the thing that most terrifies me, because it has the greatest potential to break me.

Oh boy! I really hope God knows what he's up to... cos he's clearly up to something, but it all smells a bit fishy to me!